After the Deluge

For anyone interested in reading about how the deluge in Levanto went for us, here’s a link to my wife’s blog post about it in Italian and in English. The photo above should at least give an idea of what it was like on our property (though it was taken before the mud came), which suffered, but remains intact structurally and clean inside. Just a bit of water damage inside, and tons of mud to shovel away outside.

It’s now almost 72 hours from the rains, and overhead there’s a constant flow of helicopters carrying supplies back and forth to Monterosso and Vernazza, which are still without food, water, and electricity. From our house, we can see convoys of vehicles driving up the road between Levanto and the Cinque Terre, which is otherwise closed to traffic. Our neighbors, who sheltered us after we abandoned the house as a precaution, tell us that they’ve never seen anything like it, and people are going around making comparisons to the flood of ’48, and saying that this is worse.

All I can say right now is that Erica, my girls, and I are all fine, as are my parents, who had the bad luck to be visiting this week. Even the cat made it through ok, locked inside one of our cars. Lots of other people are worse off, much worse. For anyone interested, here’s the link to the Genova paper that explains how you can help.